Homosexuality is a sin? Well, Xtians, what about these other 76 things?

[Ryantology]

That's illogical. If conscience is less than absolutely persuasive, law is required. If conscience is absolutely persuasive, there is no free will.

I purposefully did not suggest an absolutely persuasive conscience for precisely that reason. Just one which is far more difficult to ignore.

It's kind of beside the point, though, because that passage assumes that the conscience is sort of like an innate form of God's law. It's not. A person's conscience develops based upon the morals of the society in which they are raised. Otherwise, would not God's only important moral imperative (worshiping him) be innate to everyone in the world? Conscience is not a disembodied outside voice whispering in your head, it's just what we call the process of evaluating moral implications of an action.

Interesting - that's an answer some theists give to the problem of evil/suffering, yet atheists tend to discount it.

I discount it because it assumes that God could not have come up with a way to impress goodness upon people without evil. It also calls into question the assertion that God desires to destroy evil; would that not make it impossible to recognize God's supposedly absolute goodness? And, if God's goodness is absolute, why does he seem so evil to me even with evil in the world? That should be as impossible for me as breathing jello. It's just not possible for me to escape the fact that most of God's documented actions reflect mankind's evil and imperfections rather than its virtues.

Show me where we as Christians are to kill anyone. Book Chapter and Verse please.

I'll do better than that:

The OT still applies. All of it. What changes is we now have on going redemption for sin avaiable to us if we repent of it. We can not repen of it if said sin has been socially justified and accepted.

If your are asking were the OT Jews commanded to do such things, the answer was yes. Not as a matter of love but as a matter of obediance, as the dynamic of their relationship was not based on love/doing your best. Their righteousness was the righteousness of the pharasees that Jesus spoke of in Mt 5. It was based on the law, and their adhearance to it.

I was under the impression that one could not love God if one willfully refuses to obey him. And, since according to you, the OT still applies, then only Christians who do things like killing bratty kids really love God.

That is why Christ told us we must exceed the righteousness of the Pharasees, thus changing the paradyme from following the rules to seeking a state of grace.

You cannot exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees if you fail so miserably to adhere to laws which still apply to you, as a Christian.

Indeed it does but as the passage in gal says it is not there to follow. it is there to show you like the rest of us are in perpetual sin and can not ever hope to obtain righteousness through following the letter of the law. This should make those who seek God, look for another way to obtain the righteousness needed to enter Heaven.

You wish to interpret it that way because you want to think that God doesn't take your flaunting of the law into account, but as I read it, he most certainly still does consider obedience to his laws as a large part of what he considers true atonement. You're not even trying to behave as he wishes you to behave, so what is your atonement even worth?

This may have been true 2000 years ago, but again as the passage i left you intdicates, the laws only purpose now is to show you that you are in sin and need to seek attonement for said sin.

As I indicated, that's just you playing lawyer.

Maybe my version of Game of thrones is different than yours... In that geoffrey only pretends to be a 'good guy' and hates it to the point of killing someone when they find out who he really is.

Your version of Game of Thrones is definitely different from mine, then. Joffrey never even tries to pretend he's a good guy. He has absolute power over everyone as the King, and uses it mostly to torment and kill anybody he wants, for any reason he likes--mostly just because he enjoys suffering. He's probably the most hated villain on TV, even though he's pretty much just the Christian God (behaviorally) without the false pretenses of goodness.

Again all of the law still applies. This includes the Moral law, the Civial law, and the cermonial law. To break these laws is still a sin.

Yes, and this is the center of my point. You, personally, do not hold to the vast majority of those laws. You don't even try. You'd be in prison if you even attempted to hold to a quarter of them. You probably do not even want to kill your child (assuming you have one) if it is recalcitrant. I hope. But, what will God think of your refusal to honor his laws, or to even try? What will your atonement actually mean to God? "Sorry" means nothing if you're not willing to change your behavior and do as you are told, and you obviously are not willing.

This may seem like a bad thing if you did not know what 'least and greatest in the Kingdom means.'
Mat 11:11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

That does not say what it means. There's no indication that being in the kingdom of heaven is, at all, a pleasant or desirable thing in the first place. Perhaps hell is a part of that kingdom the way a prison is a part of a community, and that's where most of you are going.

This is the part I have been trying to explain. The pharisees were the most law abiding (down to the smallest letter/What most of you think christianity should be) They did everything humanly possiable to follow the law. But according to Christ their hearts were corrupt. It was their hearts that would condemn them. For the rest of Mat 5 Christ tells us that in His completion of the Law that the law not only covers your actions, but your inner feelings/wants and desires. Which makes us all guilty of the most heinous sins. (The Major sins requiring death under the law.)

And the part I have been trying to explain is, by absolutely refusing to even try to follow the law, your heart is just as corrupt as theirs, and that you will be judged accordingly.

That is why Christ said if you hope to enter heaven you mustt seek a Righteousness (Or state of being the God finds acceptable for entry into Heaven.) Greater than that of the pharisees. Read the rest of Mt 5 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=ERV

Your righteousness is far less than that of the Pharisees.

Christ in this passage makes the law an obstical so great that no one can get around it. (Like a massive mountain) Unless less you have the faith of a mustard seed. Then Christ tells us if you tell this mountain to cast itself into the sea and it will. Meaning with faith in Him, the obstical of the law moves aside.

So, then, the entire concept of Mosaic law was a cruel joke?

By the way, mustard seeds don't have faith. So I guess I'm good.

Again not that it does not apply as all who have not or will not seek attonement will find out on the day of their judgement. It's just those who believe in Christ are not held to the standard of the Law as a means to their righteousness. But again that does not mean 'we' can accept Christ in order to sin more. For this whole relationship is to be based on love. If we love God we will do our best to keep his commandments.

And, this is why, if there's a hell, virtually every Christian that ever existed will be there right along with people like me.